Today is Wednesday, Sept. 17, the 261st day of 2008. There are 105 days left in the year. On this

Today is Wednesday, Sept. 17, the 261st day of 2008. There are 105 days left in the year. On this date in 1908, Thomas E. Selfridge, a 1st Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, becomes the first person to die in the crash of a powered aircraft, the Wright Flyer. (The accident, which also seriously injures pilot Orville Wright, occurs at Fort Myer, Va., just outside Washington.)

In 1787, the Constitution of the United States is completed and signed by a majority of delegates attending the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. In 1862, in the bloodiest battle day in U.S. history, Union forces fight Confederate invaders in the Civil War Battle of Antietam at Sharpsburg, Md. In 1920, the American Professional Football Association, a precursor of the National Football League, is formed in Canton, Ohio. In 1939, the Soviet Union invades Poland, more than two weeks after Nazi Germany had launched its assault. In 1944, during World War II, Allied paratroopers launch Operation Market Garden, landing behind German lines in the Netherlands. (After initial success, the Allies are beaten back by the Germans.) In 1948, the United Nations mediator for Palestine, Count Folke Bernadotte, is assassinated in Jerusalem by Jewish extremists.

September 17, 1983: A Youngs-town patrolman, Ronald J. Casanta, 30, is seriously wounded while attempting to arrest a female impersonator on the North Side. Police says it appears the man managed to grab Casanta’s service revolver. The assailant was less seriously injured.

Three young members of Pleasant Valley Evangelical Church in Liberty return after spending 21‚Ñ2 months in Spain working on the Mennonite Rehabilitation Center in Burgos. They are Rhonda Wirtz of Lordstown, Chris Allred of Liberty and Greg Lallo of Austintown.

Coach Dick Angle leads the Ursuline High football team to a 14-6 upset of Canton McKinley’s Bulldogs before 3,500 fans at Stambaugh Stadium at Youngstown State University.

September 17, 1968: Mahoning County Auditor Stephen R. Olenick asks and gets a promise from Republic Steel Corp. to pay its personal property taxes of more than $1.5 million early to save the Youngstown schools from having to borrow $1.5 million against their $3 million share of the collection.

A 6-year-old girl in her first year at St. Joseph Elementary School in Austintown is killed when struck by a school bus at Pinegrove Avenue and Inwood Drive in Austintown. Pronounced dead at South Side Hospital is Virginia Traino.

U.S. District Judge Thomas D. Lambros grants a temporary restraining order prohibiting violence or mass picketing in the dispute between dissident drivers of Teamsters Local 377 and the Eazor Express Co.

September 17, 1958: A million-dollar expenditure for new buses by 1960 and elimination of all trolleys within five years was forecast fro the Youngstown Transit Co. by Traction Commissioner James W. Cannon.

School and civic leaders are meeting to discuss a dress code for high school students that would ban ducktail haircuts, low belts and sideburns for boys and low-cut dresses, slacks, shorts and heavy make-up for girls.

John Edward Williams, a former Niles policeman and the past commander of the Gen. Logan Camp, United Spanish American War Veterans in Youngstown, dies at 87.

September 17, 1933: For the first time since 1930, Youngstown district steel companies are on track to report a quarterly profit.

Mahoning County deputies nip an escape plot after finding two keys made out of jail knives and a 50-foot rope fashioned from blankets on two prisoners. The keys were so well made that they would unlock the fifth floor cell bank.

Niles officials are investigating charges that millions of gallons of water are being released from the Meander dam to industrial plants in Youngstown at the expense of Niles taxpayers.